In Native Foods: Agriculture, Indigeneity, and Settler Colonialism in American History, Michael D. Wise confronts four common myths about Indigenous food history: that most Native communities did not practice agriculture; that Native people were primarily hunters; that Native people were usually hungry; and that Native people never developed taste or cuisine. Wise argues that colonial expectations of food and agriculture have long structured ways of seeing (and of not seeing) Native land and labor.
Combining original historical research with interdisciplinary perspectives and informed by the work of Indigenous food sovereignty advocates and activists, this study sheds new light on the historical roles of Native American cuisine in American history and the significance of ongoing colonial processes in present-day discussions about the place of Native foods and Native history in our evolving worlds of taste, justice, and politics.
Michael D. Wise is an environmental historian specializing in the history of food and agriculture and an associate professor of history at the University of North Texas. He is the author of Producing Predators: Wolves, Work, and Conquest in the Northern Rockies.
“Wise provides an enticing taste of the emerging field of Indigenous food history. The most satisfying portions of his analysis focus not on colonialist discourse regarding Native land and labor—which has been thoroughly plumbed by scholars such as Francis Jennings, Daniel H. Usner Jr., and Alexandra Harmon—but on the environmental history of Indigenous agriculture and agroforestry. … Wise’s interdisciplinary approach teases fresh insights from current scientific studies of agronomy and interviews with Native chefs, farmers, and seed savers. … The depth of Indigenous ecological knowledge and the resilience of Native foodways are subjects in need of further study, and suggestive works like this one should encourage historians to dig in.”
—Andrew H. Fisher, Journal of Southern History, August 2024
“Native foods are ubiquitous but unacknowledged. An expert historiography based on thorough research in environmental and social histories, Native Foods frames the rich, emergent, experiential literature on Indigenous foodways in the United States, ending pointedly with a critique of the neocolonial quest for native superfoods to save us from the travails of Euro-American civilization.”
—Krishnendu Ray, author of The Migrant’s Table
Food and Foodways is a series from the University of Arkansas Press that explores historical and contemporary topics in global food studies. We are committed to representing a diverse set of voices that tell lesser known food stories and to provoking new avenues of interdisciplinary research. Our strengths are works in the humanities and social sciences that use food as a critical lens to examine broader cultural, environmental, and ethical issues. In addition to scholarly books, we publish creative nonfiction that explores these topics with a focus on food’s sensory dimensions.
